Australia - Northern Territory

2507 We arrive at 5.20 in Darwin, where the sun is just about to come up. I had checked the local bus schedule in advance (yes, in Australia we could finally schedule journeys again! ), so we knew we had time to walk to the nearest bus stop. It was a very pleasant 30min walk through calm streets and forest with many birds passing by, which felt so good after busy Indonesia. Unfortunately for the bus we need small cash, while we only have 50 dollar bills, but a local pays for us luckily. We get dropped at another bus stop and wait 10min for the next bus, so easy :). From there we try to walk to Britz campervan hire to pick up our van, but this turns out to be harder to find than expected. By now the sun is out and burning down on us, while we are still pulling our heavy luggage along. Luckily a friendly person at a local restaurant uses her internet to check where we need to go exactly; turns out we had already checked there but not good enough. So we reach the company still quite early and pick up our van, which is very luxurious and much bigger than I had expected. It has a fridge and water pump! We then finally set of to Kakadu National Park, one of the highlights of my previous Australia trip. We do want to make a stop at a shopping center on the way to shop for food for the next 7 days and end up in kmart shopping for some clothes as well. So good to be in a Western environment again! Many hours and a laundry later, we cannot actually make it to Kakadu anymore and we stop near Corroboree at a campsite with a powered site to charge the batteries of the van well. On the way westop one more time at visitor center Windows on the Wetland, which is a great interactive way to learn more about the area.

2607
Crocodile spotting time! After our firstnight in the van, we decided to book a wetlands boat tour to do some wildlife spotting around Corroborree. It is pretty close to where we stayed the night, but the last 4km is unsealed road. Well, thats a challenge with our van! It is already difficult to keep it straight on a normal road (somehow it is extremely unstable at any speed above about 60km/h and Australias roads have quite some bumpsalready), but withthe unsealed road we are forced to gono faster than 20km/h if we want to keep control. Luckily we arrive just in time anyway and hop on the boat. We see plenty of birds, many of them I still rememner from my last visit to Australia. And we even get to see several crocodiles, slaties(the mean, dangerous ones thzt can go up to 8 or 9 meters)and freshies with their sharp little snouts. All in all a good start for ourAustralia adventure.We continue to Maryriver billabong walk, before driving into Kakadu. After a lunch in the bit of shade that our van luckily provides, we head out for the short walk. It is, like always here in the Northern territory wet season, a very warm day and we are quite happy when we get to the viewing platform with a roof from where we can easily spot all the birds in the billabong when we use our binoculars. A few minutes later, a Joey (young kangaroo) decides to come to the water as well, very close to where we are. After at least half an hour of looking at all the different birds, we continue and scare away maaaaaaaaany kangaroos on our way back to the car (and when I say many, I mean they were really everywhere now that the hottest part of the day was over). We then finally drove to Kakadu, where we arrive a bit too late to get information from the visitor center. Therefore we decide to stay at one of the basic campsites (which, like entrance fee to the park, has more than doubled in price since my last visit!). Boy, what a horrible idea to start cooking at dusk in Kakadu! Hoards of mosquitos surrounded us (apparantly they hzve 17 different types of mosquitos in Kakadu!). Even mosquito spray and double layered clothes didnot help. So we decided to finish our diner inside the car and hoped to have some insect-free food left on our plate. Unfortunatelythat meant we had to open to door of the car, so by the time we wanted to go to bed, we spent another 30minutes killing mosquitos that had entered the car (we stopped counting after 40 killed mosquitos). As you can imagine, we did not sleep very well that night, because many mosquitos had survived anyway ;).

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Breakfast at the campsite was luckily nicer, with way less mosquitos. We then went for the visitor center and got loads of information on Kakadu, its wildlife, Aboriginals and hikes to do. We then went for lunch in Jabiru, the only village in Kakadu, so we could also buy some desperately-needed mosquito killing spray. Then we went to Ubirr, one of the areas in the National park where you can see loads of crocodiles. Indeed during a picnic near the river, we spotted at least 3 crocs. We then realised that the hike we wanted to do was partially closed and so we went for another hike. When we arrived there, it also turned out to be partially closed :(. A ranger who happened to be there as well, explained that they were trying to get rid of a non-native, invasive plant that had been spread by tourists all over the hike. So we went for the smaller circle through sandstone area and I had forgotten how pretty this was! The stones here are older than life, so not even fossils are found in it and they dont form real mountains, but piles of very rough shapes in many different colours. We also tried to spot some rock wallabies that were supposed to inhabit the area, but saw no more than their droppings. For the night, we decided on a campsite near Ubirr and when the ranger came to pick up the money, he warned us for mosquitos between 19h and 20.30. Luckily this time we were prepared and had started cooking a lot earlier, so we had finished eating by the time the nasty stingers started swarming around. We just spend this time in the car, since there is just no way to avoid being stung at this time of night. After mosquito hour, we tempted some star gazing, because the skies are always clear and maaaany stars become visible. Unfortunately still too many mosquitos were zooming around, so instead we watched them a bit from inside the van before we fell asleep.

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We wake up a bit earlier to grt ready for our Arnhemland tour; a tour that should take us into Arnhem land, a very big piece of australia that is a sort of reserve for Aboriginals. You can only enter with a permit normally, after crossing through the Aligator river with a 4wheel drive and then you are only allowed to stop at your destination. Therefore we thought a tour aas nicer, with an Aborignal guide th a t would bring us to old rock paintings and explain us about their way of life. We drove to a billabong where we walked a bit while hearing some stories about Aboriginal hunting and plants they use. During tea time the guide explained us about his vision of life and connected it to dreamtime and the rainbow snake, very common words in Aboriginal 'religion'. This explanation was very different from what Ive heard before and we soon realised that he really had a specific, personal view of the world anyway, but it was still interesting to hear what he had to say. The second stop in Arnhem land was at a rock painting site, where we had to climb some sandstone rocks brfore getting there. According to the guide it was rare to bring a group up there, because normally the group was not fit enough and he decided to go somewhere else with them. Again he did not explain the stories that I heard last time about what specific rock pantings mean, but he did explain about the different styles in aboriginal painting over the years and pointed out several different images. It is always really interesting to look at the different layers of paijnting thst Aboriginsls create over the years and try to understand what animal or human was painted. After a nice lunch, we left Arnhem land and went to a restricted area in kakadu, where he showed us more recent drawings that clearly included the encounter with white peoplle, their guns and their ships. At yet another site, we saw a quoll???, a bird that is extinct and so it says something about the date of the drawing (apparantly its really difficult to judge the age of a drawing normally, but the oldest are thought to be 50.000yrs old). After one more site, we were dropped off back at our van, where we still had time to do the most famous walk at Ubirr. It also inclides some rock art, although far less nice than what we had already seen. But the nicest thing about the hike is the view from on top of the rocks, so we spent quite some time up there looking at the area around us. Overnight we stayed at the same campsite as before, where we again finished eating quickly before the mosquitos showed up.

2907 We wake up early, so we can be at the Ubirr gate when it opens at 8.30, since we were tipped off thst there should be 2 families of rock wallabies that can be seen in the morning. Full of expectations we walk to the first drawings, where there should be a family and on the way we meet another shy kangaroo (or possibly female wallaroo) with a baby. She was as big as us, but also gone pretty fast once she realized we were looking back at her. After some searching we also found the rock wallabies, which are very cute and actually dont care at all whether visitors passing by make any noise. They just do their own thing and eat leaves, so we spend about 30min oberserving them until they decided it was getting too warm and left. We then left as well, on our way to Nourlangie where we were planning to do the nice pool walk Kubara. On our way there however we realised that the unsealed acces road was on our list of forbidden roads that we got when we rented our van, so we quickly turned around and made new plans. After a lunch, we decided to go to one of the rock art sites in Nourlangie, which includes a hike through extremely dry "woodlands" which I remember well from last time. We then continued to the billabong-walk, which turned out much nicer than we had hoped for. Again many brids were to be seen, but when I saw a cockatoo stopping in the sky, screeching at something, I realised that there was a 2-3m long crocodile right at the edge of the water! We watched it for a while in excitement as it was getting close to some geese and then some ducks, but they always seemed to be able to stay just out of his reach without flying away. When we finally continued walking, we spotted another, bigger crocodile while sunbathing, again with the birds right next to him :o! Since it was getting late by now, we met up with a ranger for a free ranger-guided sunset walk. He took us back to the billabong first and explained some thingd about local plants and what they could he used for. We then finslly walked up to the lookout point at Nourlangie, which, even though less spectacular than Ubirr, was very nice. We couldnt actually see the sun set, because there was no 360 view, but the changing colors were worth it anyway :) We then quickly drove to the cakpsite we had picked, trying to avoid driving at nighttime for too long. Unfortunstely there was no warning anywhere that this campsite was for tents only, meaning that we couldnt get in (however we realised that only afterbhaving taken the 15min or so unsealed road). So we went to a campsite not to far away, that luckily did not have that many mosquitos.

3007 Early back to Nourlangie for the barrk walk, a 12km walk, with a big part going through extreme hot woodlands. Since we knew this, we started early, after a disappointing 20min ranger-talk (which was supposed to last 1h and explain about rock art instead of the same plants as yesterday). The walk was amazing, with great views and lots of changing environments for the first half. Then the hot part came, for which we took loads of water and it wasnt as bad as expected. Many parts were burned down, but there were also some bits where the tall speargrass (up to 3m high) was still standing, which made it still interesting to walk through. We finished the hike faster than expected (and with more than half of our pretty heavy water left). This left us just enough time to visit the Aboriginal centre in Yellow water before it closed down, but even after this visit we still felt like there were quite some gaps in our knowledge on how they used to live. Anyhow, we moved on to another campsite where we arrived quite a bit before sunset for once. This gave Matthieu time to find firewood and light the fire. It gave me time to spot a dingo while preparing food. It passed by again during diner, when Matthieu clearly heard some footsteps behind him and put it in the spotlight with his headlight. Pretty cool :) Apparantly several of them howled while I was taking a shower.

3107 While packing up, a bluewinged kookaburra decided to watch from the tree above us, what we were doing. So we had time to take in its beautiful color (who was watching who???). Since we had decided that it would be nice to visit Katherine Gorge and Edith falls, it was time to leave Kakadu :( We made a stop at Pine Creek on our way, which is just as small as I remember. At Edtih falls we arrived nicely in time to get a spot at the campsite and start the Lelyin trail that should take us to several pools where we could swim. The pools were indeed very nice and we tried to swim in the last one, however coming from kakadu with all its crocodiles, we did not feel entirely safe and thus couldnt enjoy as much as we should have. On the way back, we stopped at 'upper pool', where many day visitors and tourists come for swimming. Since there were still some people, we finally felt safe enough to go for a good swim. Though since it was getting late already, it was getting difficult to see some rocks hidden in the water and it started getting cold as well, so we got out, while spotting two monitors (big lizards) taking in the last bit of evening sun.

0108 To Katherine/Nitmiluk gorge! We arrived quite early again, but not early enough to join the morning tour for kayaking (apparantly we needed a ferry to cross gorge 1 and then pick up the kayak in the next gorge). Since we still had some time for the afternoon tour, we hiked to see the first gorge from the viewpoint, which again was very nice. The kayaking itself was also pretty cool, they warned us not to bother the sweetwater crocodiles that might start nesting and even showed a big one on our way to the kayaks in gorge 2. It was pretty cool to kayak these gorges, however difficult to keep on going straight with the wind coming in. To get to gorge 3, we had to carry the kayak over 3 meters of rocks, which was very tricky with 2 people trying to balance themselves and the kayak (although Matthieu seemed to be struggling less than me). In gorge 3, we swtiched spots, so I would be steering, but then I hit Matthieu on the head by accident which did not go down so well xD. To reach gorge 4, we would have to carry the kayak over maaaany meters of rocks with some small pools in between. Since we were only doing the half day kayaking, we were advised not to bother and just walk to this gorge. When we saw the effort it would take, we totally agreed with that and thus walked to the other side. There we jumped in for a nice swim, still not completely comfortable with the idea that there might be crocs around. The way back went much faster, since we also had the wind in the back. We also passed another sweetwater croc that was sunbathing. Since we were running short on time, we had decided to drive back up north a little already and stay overnight at a free campsite according to the app we were using. When we turned into the unsealed road, leading to the campsite, we started to doubt the accuracy of the app though. There was no sign or whatsoever and the road led straight to a dried up river, where the road got even worse. However when I walked into the river bank, I found several other campers and so we parked our van at the beginning of the 'campsite' and had diner.

0208 Time to visit Litchfield park, which according to some (definitely not us) is better than Kakadu. We stopped at the giant termite mounts and did a lookout walk. We then continued to the most famous waterfall, the Wangi falls. Its rather a public swimming pool than a national park, but it was very nice to be able to swim and test our snorkeling masks from Decathlon a little more. The water was very cold however, so we could not stay long and were very happy to change into dry clothes after. We then went for Florence falls, which has a nice walk around it, nice swimking and we would camp there. Unfortunately the campsite was completely full, so after some discussion we went for the walk anyway and then left Litchfield to find a campsite that was not yet full.

0308 The campsite we had found yesterday, included free minigolf which Matthieu really likes. So he challenged me to play a game before driving back to Darwin. Of course I accepted and miraculously won big time (he probably wont like me remembering and writing this down). Once in Darwin, we dropped our stuff at the hostel (a relatively cheap one for darwin standards) and briught back the car. On the way we had already refilled the gas bottle, after having asked at 3 different places before finally finding someone thst could actually do it. We then realised that buses in the weekend are a lot less frequent and decided to try Uber to get back to the hostel, which went pretty fast :) There we had time to walk into Darwin, with a nice view on the sea :) Once again, I realised how small the actual centre really is and we could only find 2 restaurants that were open. One of them offered lots of meat for relatively low prices, so Matthieu quickly made up his mind about where to eat. After we walked to the open air cinema, which was great last time. This time, neither of us was convinced by the movie they were going to display and so we decided to continue walking while watching the sun set. Darwin is much more lively at the water front, where there was an Indonesian (!) festival xD!

0408 Checked out early and took an Uber to the airport; next stop:Cairns. It has waaaaaay cheaper hostels than Darwin and we actually really liked the hostel we picked in Cairns. It was about 30min walk from the real city centre, but we could walk near the beach. The town is so much more lively than Darwin! We took a good look around and informed at a visitor centre about the best opportunities for visiting the reef. Though since the predicted winds were quite strong, they advised us to wait a few days. No problem for us, we wanted to visit the area anyway ;)